Tuesday, December 29, 2015

It's been, like, almost 3 months since the last time I ever attempted to update this place. I've been trying, believe me - but the weight of obligations and priorities just kept dragging me down I have to do something about all of them. I've been too busy for the past few months and somehow, I know that I am starting to lose something in me.

There came a time when I can't even write for the life me -- my mind too crowded and too fuzzy to even focus on something. And I was afraid - that it left me just when I needed it. It was a pretty damning thing to know: having something so necessary taken away just like that.

BUT I realized that it would totally leave me only if I allow it. That I will always catch it, outrun it, only if I really want to. So I am starting again. Again and again, until all ink is spilled and all inspiration exhausted. I'll keep at it.

I am a writer. I am flat out declaring it because I know no other word(s) to call it. I am someone who takes solace in the written art, someone who bleeds ink and rebels in it.

And when someone says, "You're good with words." - always, always I beg to disagree: what does that even mean? To be "good" with words? I am not "good" at it - but rather, I find comfort in it. I like using them, I feel the NEED to use them. It's a connection that goes bone-deep.I love words, and for years and years, I don't really know if it ever loved me back. But I needed them like air and I am in no damn business of changing that anytime soon.

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

I'm in this sort of a project right now and the very objective: to vanquish the crippling Feeling and not go to THAT dark place again -- because, in the first place, I'm not really sure if I can even afford to. So yeah, be it a coincidence or not, but I'm in this rampage of reading YA books with somewhat depressing storylines. So far, I've read the following:

And, to wrap up this month and this project as well, I'm targeting to finish these two books before October comes.

Every You, Every Me by David Levithan; Falling into Place by Amy Zhang

As THE Great Chuck Bass put it:

You know what’s even more effective? Excess. Eat anything too much and you won’t want it again.

And I am actually believing that right here, right now.

I've been reading too fast, absorbing too much lately - I almost wonder if anything's wrong, or if I'm picking up and absorbing things the way these books are supposed to be consumed. But they're affecting me, even if its just for a moment. The books I've read, so far, were worthwhile - and can never be easily forgotten.

I've read depressing stories so much in the past few days that, more often than not, left me a little broken inside. There's just too much going on. I've been feeling uncharacteristically upbeat and bright for the longest period from what I can remember. This is the defense mechanism my weird brain came up with, I guess. "There's too much negative going on," maybe my brain thought, "we need to balance it out, or else we need to raise the red." I'm in this weird state of being happily positive, while reading negative stories and instilling depressing things in my mind. The complicated situation I am putting myself in almost makes me laugh.

I am expecting that, at the end of this, this weird feeling of wanting sad things, tragic endings and all things depressing would just go away - at least for a while. And if it did (I sure hope so), everything would just be roses and butterflies. I think I deserve that even just for a short period of time. As Theodore Finch put it and made it clear, I also do want a perfect day. And I hope it comes - it would really help.

I am planning to have a kind of Murakamireading fest this coming October, and I can't afford to have these dark, depressing thoughts while subjecting myself to the surreal. It would just be too much. The realizations won't be pretty, I can only imagine the horror.

And short or weird as this post may be, I am cutting this crap now because my battery's on critical level already and I'm too lazy to get my charger and it's past 1 in the morning, and I need to be at the office no later than 8:30 AM. So until next time, bye. ;)
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I wrote all this while listening to Ryan Adam's take on TSwift's Out of the Woods, ON LOOP. What say you? ;3

Thursday, September 10, 2015

It's that time of the year again! Block your schedules on the 16th to 20th of September 2015 for it is the 36th MANILA INTERNATIONAL BOOK FAIR.

It may be a bit surprising, but this is honestly the first time that I will be able to attend the MIBF. I've been missing so much, right. I might've been living under a rock for so long during the past few years that the fair only caught my attention last 2012.

2012 - I can't come due to school responsibilities.

2013 - The schedule of the fair overlapped with my board exam dates.

2014 - I was at Davao for client field work.

Freakin' reasons~ >.<

To think that it's been going on for so long. Lol.

So long story short, this is my first time -- and I can't vouch for others, but most of the time for me, the first is always worthwhile.

Anyway, I was really worried for the first part of week because I can't really find the time to drop by Fullybooked because I was stuck doing client work at Libis. Taking into account all the traffic congestion around that area during the rush hour, it was hard. That's why I was really thrilled when we finally changed our venue and continued our work in our office at Makati. I went to Greenbelt the first chance I got. And I got me some tix! :D *happy kid*

I can go on and on about the amazing-ness that is 'reading' but it is evident: IT IS DEFINITELY A PRIVILEGE. Sadly, this privilege is not something that everyone is able to enjoy.

According to UNESCO's recent statistics, "775 million adults (15 years and older) still cannot read or write – two-thirds of them (497 million) are women. Among youth, 122 million are illiterate of which 74 million are female." And it is sad.

That's why to raise awareness of this important issue, UNESCO proclaimed September 8 as International Literacy Day -- which is TODAY!And to celebrate it, Grammarly has gathered the latest literacy statistics from around the world into an infographic.

Saturday, September 5, 2015

When I first started to write Indiscretion, I had no idea that this first book in the trilogy would be the beginning of a long romance with Spain. But when I visited that beautiful, flamboyant country and met its passionate, life-loving people – and immersed myself in the literature and culture, the architecture and history – I soon realised that I had a deep affinity with the Spaniards.

In my early draft of Indiscretion, the book was set in the seventies, but by the time I’d reached the middle of the book, I realised that it would be difficult for me to become involved with another country for my next novel – I had learnt so much about Spain that I was deeply in love with the country and with everything Spanish. That is when the seed of the next book, Masquerade, began to germinate in my mind. And so I moved Indiscretion back in time, to make room for not one, but two sequels following the next generations.

With Indiscretion set in the 1950s, the story takes place during General Franco’s regime. That means for Indiscretion’s heroine, Alexandra, who arrives in Andalucía at the beginning of that decade, Spanish society seems to be frozen in the Dark Ages. In many ways, this first book of the trilogy has the feel of historical fiction, because the world which Alexandra enters is not the modern-looking one she is used to in England.

Masquerade, the second book which has just published, is set in the second half of the seventies. Franco is dead. Now that the tyrant is gone, the nation is reborn; Spain has opened its borders to outsiders and is preparing to enter the European Union. Consequently Luz, Alexandra’s daughter and the heroine of Masquerade, has a much more emancipated attitude to life, as do her parents and the book’s hero.

In Legacy, the final book which will publish in spring 2016, the story takes place in the present day and Spain has changed out of all recognition. It is a much more liberal country now, where old prejudices and narrow-minded concepts are almost a thing of the past. However, the problems the hero and heroine have to face, the hurdles they must overcome, are of a more complex nature and are almost more challenging.

My Andalucían Nights Trilogy, then, is a journey through Spain’s different historical periods, focusing on how my heroes and heroines confront the issues facing their respective generations. But across all the stories there is one constant: passion, passion, passion! What else could you expect from books set in the country of the flamenco dancer and the matador?

Author Bio

Hannah Fielding is an incurable romantic. The seeds for her writing career were sown in early childhood, spent in Egypt, when she came to an agreement with her governess Zula: for each fairy story Zula told, Hannah would invent and relate one of her own. Years later – following a degree in French literature, several years of travelling in Europe, falling in love with an Englishman, the arrival of two beautiful children and a career in property development – Hannah decided after so many years of yearning to write that the time was now. Today, she lives the dream: writing full time at her homes in Kent, England, and the South of France, where she dreams up romances overlooking breath-taking views of the Mediterranean.

To date, Hannah has published four novels: Burning Embers, ‘romance like Hollywood used to make’, set in Kenya; the award-winning Echoes of Love, ‘an epic love story that is beautifully told’ set in Italy; and Indiscretion and Masquerade (from the Andalusian Nights Trilogy), her fieriest novels yet. She is currently working on her forthcoming book, Legacy, the final title in the trilogy, which is due to be published in spring 2016.

Monday, August 31, 2015

It's the Philippines Literary Festival 2015! I attended Day 2 of the PLF and it was such an experience.

Unexpected heavy rains + unnecessary working at 3:00 am led to me to wake up later than I expected last Saturday. So yeah, I missed half of the session I scheduled myself to attend, but I still managed to squeeze it in.

I got my festival pass and started fumbling through the schedule. There was a decent number of books on display. I was initially a bit underwhelmed by the displays as I expected a festive mood, it being a festival and all. But anyway, I quickly realized that the festival's true stars were really the different scheduled sessions throughout the day.

Books by featured authors Meg Wolitzer and Mathew Quick were in the spotlight.

Armed with the trusty ol' Latte, off I go.

Me and my friend got the chance to squeeze into the Namayan room for the last 30 minutes of the Looking for the Filipino Public Intellectual sesh by The Manila Review. It was a very refreshing discussion on identifying public intellectuals, how to be one, and their importance. How it was the public intellectuals' duty to make their opinions public - there's a reason there's the word "public" to "public intellectual". There was a bit in there where they discussed the importance of the reviewing culture to the Philippines Literature industry - that the Philippines don't really have an active book reviewing culture, and that most of the time, Filipino book reviewers choose to review, talk about books of foreign authors, sometimes totally ignoring the local publishing scene.

To be honest, I was kinda guilty of doing just that. I realized the sheer meaning and contribution that book reviewing does to promote and support our country's local writing community. I think I might try venturing to reviewing local books in the near future -- I just need to find the right book. :)

I was examining the schedule days before the actual event dates and I initially chose to include the Translation: A Creative Act session by Anvil Publishing to my lineup. I was lurking around the book shelves, in front of the Cafe Macaron stand when a lady all dressed in black (black hoody + black pants) with black paint all over her face holding a can of Lysol approached me and invited me to join their session. I said yes, maybe mostly because I was a bit freaked out by her appearance. It was hilarious how I initially thought it was a play and expected that all the members of the panel would be in full costume -- but, they were not. It turned out that the lady was Bebang Siy, author of It's A Mens World, cosplaying as Margo Roth Spiegelman from John Green's Papertowns (which she translated to Tagalog together with her husband, Ronald Verzo). She was really hilarious throughout the session.

They talked about the process of translating a book to Tagalog -- which, now that I think about it, is a really hard job considering all the things that you have to take into account. You have to reread the book over and over, owning the story as if it were your own, mapping the thinking patterns of the characters -- before you can make a decent translation of it. It's not the average word-by-word translation that most of us think it was. It is a long, complex process.They also introduced translating as a viable new career option, which, from the looks of it, was pretty interesting.

Coloring wall from the Hue Can Do It! team.

The last session, Venus Retrograde: A Poetry Reading Session by the Romancing Venus, was definitely the highlight of my day. I remember sitting in that chair, freezing from that all too cold temperature from the airconditioner of Raffles Makati's Ballroom 1. I remember being too excited because this is my first time listening to poetry being performed live -- I've always wanted to go since forever. And I remember thinking that I am in for something special and that I know I would enjoy it even before listening to the actual thing. It was really weird.

Saying that the things I saw right there and then were some of the most heartfelt things I've heard and witnessed in my life was, I guess, an understatement. I can't really explain it, but I was really overwhelmed during the whole thing. It was truly magical. And it was amazing how these ladies can completely put themselves out there in the open -- exposing the rawest part of themselves to people who cared and dared to listen. I've recorded almost everything from that session because I know that these are things that I would want to look back to over and over again in the coming days. And I'm still trying to figure out how to upload everything, and by that time, I guess I'll make a separate post about it.

Random selfie, y'guys! :*

I literally mooned over the girl's room waiting for Roence Santos to come out just to take a picture with her. It was definitely weird but I just can't let the chance pass by since I was really touched, inspired and enlightened by everything that she performed and said in that session. I hope I can encounter her again in the future. *hopeful*

Obligatory shot.

The Philippines Literary Festival 2015.

Crappy OOTD shot, complete with a cup of coffee on hand. :)

I definitely enjoyed the event despite just going to one out of the three days in the scheduled programme. Definitely something worth remembering and gushing about. I hope I could still join next year.

Thursday, August 27, 2015

If you've been following me on Twitter, you've probably heard me gushing about a certain romance book titled Indiscretion. As it turns out, it is part of a trilogy called the Andalucian Nights by award-winning romance novelist, Hannah Fielding.

After the captivating first book of the trilogy, it's Book 2, Masquerade, has recently been published!

And as a treat from Hannah Fielding herself, here is the cover of her latest novel plus an excerpt of the book! :)

Book Blurb:

A young writer becomes entangled in an illicit gypsy love affair, pulling her into a world of secrets, deception and dark desire.

Summer, 1976. Luz de Rueda returns to her beloved Spain and takes a job as the biographer of a famous artist. On her first day back in Cádiz, she encounters a bewitching, passionate young gypsy, Leandro, who immediately captures her heart, even though relationships with his kind are taboo. Haunted by this forbidden love, she meets her new employer, the sophisticated Andrés de Calderón. Reserved yet darkly compelling, he is totally different to Leandro but almost the gypsy’s double. Both men stir unfamiliar and exciting feelings in Luz, although mystery and danger surround them in ways she has still to discover.

Luz must decide what she truly desires as glistening Cádiz, with its enigmatic moon and whispering turquoise shores, seeps back into her blood. Why is she so drawn to the wild and magical sea gypsies? What is behind the old fortune-teller’s sinister warnings about ‘Gemini’? Through this maze of secrets and lies, will Luz finally find her happiness… or her ruin?

Masquerade is a story of forbidden love, truth and trust. Are appearances always deceptive?

Sunday, August 16, 2015

It's almost 10 minutes after 3:00 in the morning and I am writing this while waiting for an e-mail attachment to finish uploading. Work as always, but it's just me procrastinating early on that's why.

From the last few days, I've learned to somehow set a boundary between my me-time and my work. The number of times I checked my e-mail, replied to a text, or just answered a call after office hours was surprisingly lesser compared from before. I don't know if it's a good thing -- but what I do know is that it helps me keep my mind at ease if just for a few hours.

I am slowly coming to terms with the reality that these things won't really affect me that much if I don't also think about them that much. And so far, it's been good.

I'm am striving to finally get a life outside of work these past few days... and luckily, the results were satisfying. I even had a bunch of things on my to-do list right now. Pretty special things! :D

I am gearing up towards a really big change in my life that I just decided to do one particularly humid afternoon, after talking to my dad and realizing that I don't know what the hell I am doing with my life at the moment. I am finally going back to school, and as much as I want to say more about it... I guess, I'll announce it here once it's all set in stone. Ayt?

Status and blog updates of friends or just plain acquaintances getting published seriously bothered me and got me to thinking where my dream of becoming a writer go. I've always wanted to write, and even if I know that I'm not particularly good at it, the dream still lives on. The craziest thing I did this week? I created an account in a writing platform under an alias. I mean, really. >.< I want to literally write my own fiction, the fiction I'd like to read. I don't really have that ultimate goal of being published (but if given the chance, yeah, that's an added bonus)... but this is me trying this thing rather than regretting not doing it for the rest of my life. :)

I am actually thinking of finally changing themes! For this blog, yes! I know that my current layout was made by sheer effort right before my college graduation but I do think that this style does not suit me anymore. I'll squeeze things in, and, hopefully I could find time to do it.

Life is crazy these days. But I know, the next few days are gonna be exciting! :)

Since our previous office was literally just in front of the Power Plant Mall, this cafe has been my go-to place whenever I feel down or just downright struck by the bad combination of stress + pressure in the past. Carbonara has always had a special place in my heart. And this is one cafe where I frequently get my fix of that. It's an added bonus that it's beside Fullybooked. So yeah, you could imagine the book hoarding (and window shopping) involved while waiting for my order to be served at my table.

It was fully renovated, in all fairness. With a more spacious and more minimalist design.

We really missed their Chicken Roulade! I liked their previous plating mroe, but the taste was still the same. :)

A plate of Carbonara for me!

Pasta Arrabiata for my friend.

Although we noticed some slight change in the taste of the pastas that we've grown to love in the past, uhm, smaller serving, and, uh, less interesting platings (attention: people allergic to change), it was still a pretty filling dinner.

I still can't get the Muji Store back at Rockwell out of my mind whenever I picture their new interiors. But it was really an upgrade from their past design.

Whatever, I'm just so glad that it is finally back on business again. :)

Sunday, August 9, 2015

Life at work has been pretty tough for some reason these past few days.
It's not really the amount of work that bothers me, but how I respond to it.
I'm not normally like this, as I am a self-confessed pressure sucker.
Maybe it's the added responsibility, or just the thought that I have to prove myself every freakin' time.
It's like there's this implicit rule to always keep appearances... and more often than not, I hate that about the corporate world,Sometimes, it's pretty exhausting to keep up with that kind of environment -- that I find myself retreating once again in this little shell of mine.And that kind of thing -- that kind of feeling -- won't ever be easy to explain.

I don't know if I'll be in trouble for posting this, but I need to vent out.
Obviously, Facebook is not an option as there are people lurking in there, waiting for something they'll find 'juicy' to talk about (I can just imagine), or, better yet, poke fun at.And I'm not really in the mood to be judged right now.

There're days when I am trying to figure out if I am going the right way.
There are even days when I just don't want to get out of bed -- devoid of any motivation to just downright exist. (Don't worry, no suicidal thoughts involved.)

Maybe I am undergoing some sort of 'quarter life crisis' right now, if that's what you call it.

I have these long talks with my father that can always be summed up with "I don't know wtf I am doing with my life right now."
And it's pretty frustrating, reaching this age and all.That just when you thought things are going to get clearer, you find both your feet stuck deeper into that mud you're in.

I badly need change in my life right now.
May it be my environment.
My career.
Or, say, just my mindset.

The next few months are going to be crucial.
And who knows, maybe I'll come out a better person from all of this (or a depressing chump who knows nothing but complain, oh well).

Big things are about to happen.
And big decisions are about to be made.
I can feel it.

But in the meantime, self, hold on. And try to get by.
Your questions will be answered in due time.

xxx

I am writing this at roughly 4 minutes after 7:00 AM on a Monday. It's a working day and I haven't slept a wink and I am wondering if this is really how I want to live my life.

Saturday, August 8, 2015

A couple of weeks ago, we set out to find this cute little place that we found online. Honestly speaking, it's rare for me to hear about local cafes within our area that're getting rave reviews. Maybe I'm just not that informed, but yeah, you get my point.

Beantage Cafe is a quaint little coffee shop located among several commercial places lined up between Patindig Araw and South Super Market along Aguinaldo High Way at Imus, Cavite. We hail from Dasmarinas City, Cavite so getting there and locating it still took some time -- despite being a neighboring town of Imus.

It was just a small place, but boy they managed to make it feel comforting and all. And though you won't really think of it that much when viewed from the outside, the interior was artsy and cozy.

After that heart-treanding ride at Westeros and the free cities that the Game of Thrones have given me, I have continued on to reading the...

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All pictures posted in this blog are the property of Riza Ponciano unless otherwise stated. If I used your work in any way here in my blog and you like to be credited or want it removed, feel free to contact me at riza.ponciano@gmail.com.